Every day, Pinstripe Alley offers updates on what the Yankees’ top American League opponents are up to through the Rivalry Roundup. The AL East is well-trodden ground there, but with the Trade Deadline behind us, we’re going to take a peek around MLB as a whole and check in with each of the other five divisions. Who’s surprising? Who’s underwhelming? Who’s simply mediocre at the moment? Read on and find out.
First Place: Milwaukee Brewers (85-53)
Top Position Player: Brice Turang (4.2 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Jacob Misiorowski (5.7 fWAR)
After
the trade deadline, I made my perspective known in these pages about the Brewers’ strategy — namely that winning on the margins without a cast of superstars is all well and good in the regular season, but tends to turn into a liability in October. Well, Milwaukee has unsurprisingly continued to win since then, including against their biggest NL rival. They took three out of four in Los Angeles against the Dodgers to secure the tiebreak and make the top seed in the NL just that little bit easier. If they stay the course in September, that first round bye is all theirs.
There are superstars on this roster, to be clear. Jacob Misiorowski leads MLB in ERA, FIP, WHIP, and strikeouts. He’ll obviously be a nightmare for opposing lineups to face. Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan have been capable complementary rotation arms, and their bullpen remains rock-solid.
On the hitting side, Jackson Chourio is finding his stride at the right time — he posted a .914 OPS in August. If he can continue to produce at that echelon, suddenly my argument against the Brewers gets ricketier. That said, one wonders whether Brice Turang, Jake Bauers, and Garrett Mitchell will be able to replicate the regular seasons they’ve had once they face the best of the best on the mound.
Second Place: Chicago Cubs (78-60)
Top Position Player: Pete Crow-Armstrong (9.3 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Ben Brown (2.0 fWAR)
It felt like every game involving the Cubs this month had some fireworks. Sometimes, they were running up the score against the Mariners; other times they were blowing late leads to the Diamondbacks. In the last week of August alone, they lost 10-8 to the Reds, won the very next contest 17-5, and put up 17 runs against the Brewers in the final game of the month. The people having the most fun with this team are the impartial fans. Like me! I’ve been watching these guys a lot.
I don’t think the Shohei Ohtani industrial complex, powerful as it is, will be able to deny Pete Crow-Armstrong from claiming the NL MVP this year. He has made a habit of either beginning or ending games with home runs — sometimes, he’ll even do both, like in a crosstown bout with the White Sox. He’s the commander of the league’s best offense, which boasts a 117 wRC+, well above the Dodgers’ second place mark of 109.
The questions lie in the pitching staff. The Jed Hoyer-led front office did a solid job adding veterans Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes to shore up a rotation which has been bitten hard by the injury bug. (More bad news on that front: their biggest breakout arm, Ben Brown, suffered a setback in his recovery from a neck injury and will remain on the shelf.) The Cubs have 10 pitchers on the injured list — all but one of those guys are on the 60-day. Can they outslug their problems on the hill? They may have no choice.
Third Place: St. Louis Cardinals (68-70)
Top Position Player: JJ Wetherholt (4.4 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Andre Pallante & Kyle Leahy (2.4 fWAR)
The Cardinals now reside in the mushy middle following a promising start to the year in which it appeared they may have been ahead of schedule. POBO Chaim Bloom’s project to reshape a team which was decidedly behind-the-times before his arrival is still a work in progress; St. Louis has the league’s 22th-ranked offense by wRC+ and the 20th-ranked pitching staff by ERA-. They’ve been playing above their weight class by doing the things the Cardinals always do well: induce soft contact, play good defense, and get hits in high-leverage spots.
The top of the St. Louis lineup seems to be largely set for the next few years: JJ Wetherholt as the toolsy tablesetter at the top ahead of Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson, two power bats with more contact chops than you’d expect. Joshua Báez announced his arrival bombastically with homers in his first three at-bats in the Show, something no one else has ever done. The construction zone begins after those guys. And this rotation won’t knock your socks off with high-caliber stuff or elite results anytime soon. They’re perfectly solid, not much more than that.
The future picture for the Cardinals is a bit of an odd one; with the Cubs and Brewers bidding to remain atop the food chain for quite a while, do they try to aggressively punch their way back into the playoff picture, or do they bide their time for regression to come for their rivals? Obviously, the upcoming offseason labor theater will also factor into these tough decisions as well.
Fourth Place: Pittsburgh Pirates (67-71)
Top Position Player: Brandon Lowe (3.6 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Paul Skenes (4.1 fWAR)
Were the season a little shorter, these Pirates may have stuck around in the playoff race a bit longer. But attrition has hit the Bucs rather hard, particularly in the rotation. Veteran Mitch Keller is out for the year with an injury to his teres major injury, Jared Jones and Bubba Chandler have been inconsistent, and Paul Skenes is having a down season by his stratospheric standards. Manager Don Kelly has moved to more of a six-man rotation to give Skenes more time between his starts, and that strategy has allowed him to rebound from a rough July. At the end of the day, the playoff odds for a team with the NL’s longest postseason drought continue to dwindle.
The Pirates were hitting their way to relevance this season with one of the highest scoring lineups, but that offensive production has waned. In August, they hit just .217/.398/.334 as a team. That’s a 50-point drop in average from the previous two months, and a 90-point drop in slugging from July. The dog days are not kind to this seafaring crew by the Allegheny. Not even Oneil Cruz hitting a home run off Mason Miller was enough to make up the difference.
I’m sure Pirates fans were chagrined by the news that Angels’ owner Arte Moreno finally took a hint and sold his team on Tuesday, sparking sudden optimism that one of the most moribund franchises in MLB — and the only one with a longer playoff drought than Pittsburgh — can finally turn the corner to relevance. Fans in western PA have been longing for Bob Nutting to do that very thing for a long time. I suppose they’ll keep on hoping.
Fifth Place: Cincinnati Reds (65-73)
Top Position Player: Elly De La Cruz (4.6 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Chase Burns (4.2 fWAR)
These Redlegs sure could use a break. Early in August it was announced that All-Star pitcher Hunter Greene would need to undergo a second Tommy John surgery, meaning Cincy will probably be without the former second-overall pick until 2028. The news cast a funerial pall over what was already a rough year in Queen City.
The youth movement that never seems to come to fruition did see some big strides this season. First baseman Sal Stewart deservedly made the All-Star team, as did fireballer Chase Burns — who, like Greene, was once drafted second overall. Elly De La Cruz hasn’t set the world on fire, but has remained a very, very good player. It just isn’t enough to make up for all the places where this team remains deficient. Cincinnati’s team wRC+ of 92 is the second-worst figure in baseball. Their 4.68 staff ERA is tied for fourth-worst.
This anecdote probably sums up the season as well as anything else: last week, the Reds placed veteran Eugenio Suárez and outfielder TJ Friedl on waivers. These decisions are often kept private due to the emotional nature of placing a well-respected player on waivers — and manager Terry Francona was irate that the news escaped the room. That both players ultimately went snubbed by the rest of the baseball likely only added to his consternation. In Suárez’s case, he’s got some more important matters at hand: the popular slugger will be stepping away from the team to take the naturalization test as he seeks to become an American citizen.
